Ellen and Beth Anne go deeper on nervous system supports and how we take care of ourselves.
Ellen and Beth Anne go deeper on nervous system supports and how we take care of ourselves.
Welcome back. I'm excited for you to listen to our next episode and we kick off right away with the compelling notion that self-compassion is anti-inflammatory, which I loved, and I loved our conversation. I'll leave it at that today. I really hope you enjoy the episode and, yeah, if you like the show, please don't forget to let us know. Drop Bethanne or I in the email if you have any questions. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Hi, you're listening to the Inner Light with Ellen podcast. I'm your host, ellen Wyoming Deloy. I'm an executive coach, trainer and facilitator who helps people and teams get from where they are to where they want to be, through inquiry, reflective listening and by expanding what's possible along the way. On this show, I bring you conversations with leaders and wellness, spirituality, healing, mindfulness and more. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen and, if you love the show, leave a five star review so others can find us. If you want to learn more about my work and what I do, go to EllenWyomingDeloycom. Thanks, enjoy the episode. Welcome back. Part two of unknown number of conversations that Bethanne and I will have on these topics. Welcome back.
Speaker 2:Bethanne, thank you. It's good to be here with you again.
Speaker 1:We were just catching up and chatting and we started we kind of started to talk about a topic that we thought would be interesting, so we decided to hit record and continue the conversation. But Bethanne just said to me Ellen, compassion, self compassion, is anti inflammatory. So I'll just leave it there. Bethanne, can you pick up from there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been doing a little bit of a deep dive this week into inflammation as it pertains to chronic illness and some of these things hidden infections and stuff like that in the body that are part of my personal pursuit at the moment.
Speaker 2:And I woke up this morning and I was reminded because I knew this and I used to share this with my patients in the pelvic health PT space all the time, because I've actually read research papers on this and, forgive me, I can't quote any of them, but if someone reaches out and wants the papers I can find them. They've actually studied self compassion practice versus stress response and looked at levels in the body like, I think, cortisol and different markers of inflammation and they found consistently that self compassion practice diminishes the inflammatory load in the body based on these anti inflammatory or inflammatory markers. They decrease with self compassion. I don't remember parameters or like how long people are doing it. I don't. It wasn't a long term study, I know that, but literally like we have that much control over inflammation in the body to some extent. I mean that's amazing to me.
Speaker 1:That is amazing. My main two thoughts are one can you break down the elements of a self compassion practice for us? And the second one would be maybe we should upload one as like a bonus meditation or something. Once we're when we're done, we could put one out there for people to go find. They could also probably YouTube something. But, Beth Ann, as you learned about it, what are the elements of a self compassion practice?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a good question. Honestly for me, like I very much individualized my practices, so if you were to ask me, like what is everyone talking about? I have no idea, I just read stuff and then I'm like, ok, cool, what works for me? I can tell you that. You know, if someone is wanting to get a deeper dive on this, kristen Neff is a self compassion expert and I actually like hers. I haven't read her first book, but her second, second book, I think it's called fierce compassion, fierce self compassion, fierce self compassion.
Speaker 1:I just saw it, you just looked over, I saw it yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's a really great book and there's there's actually a ton of practices in there and I think if you go online to the books like online counterpart, she's got a lot of meditations you can download. But for me, honestly, it's really simple right now, because I'm doing so many things right now with my nervous system it's like I don't have another five, 10, 20 minutes beyond the hour or whatever and a half that I'm doing to like do this too Right, so what it? What it amounts to for me is like take a breath, find that core self part of me inside. That's not my inner critic Like pretty much anything, but my inner critic Like okay.
Speaker 2:I hear you, inner critic, I name you inner critic. You're not all of who I am. Where's that other part of me that knows the deeper truth? And you can see me doing it now. If people can't see, they can hear. I'm putting my hand on my heart and I just breathe, put my hand on my heart and go okay, okay, this is okay, you are okay. There's reasonable explanations for what's happening right now and even if they're unreasonable, it doesn't matter. And my core self voice likes to call me sweet one. Hey, sweet one, it's okay. So that's kind of it's shifting into that place of here and now and being with it. Sweet one, it's okay. Adding my heart gently, that's really what I'm doing right now and really trying to practice going to that. When I noticed that my thoughts are spiraling, when I notice that the inner critic is getting really loud, when I notice that I'm in a lot of resistance to whatever it is that I need or want to do or don't want to do, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's my simple practice.
Speaker 1:I have so many. You've just made me think so many things. Thank you so much for that quick explanation because I think whoever's listening is like okay, I have to go get a book from Kristen Neff and go down like no, you know, you can just listen to what Beth Ann said and I like that. You said initially too, like you do just create it for yourself and you are also spending so much time on your nervous system kind of capacity building and resetting that you don't have time for a complete other practice. And part of me was like I'm pretty sure your nervous system practice is your own self compassion as well, because you've made the time to dedicate to yourself. But yesterday I was like, oh, I'm doing self compassion practice and I wouldn't have called it that because yesterday I did what you said.
Speaker 1:Because I tend to spiral out a little bit if I feel like I'm over communicating and over communicating is something that I tend to do in my critical thoughts all the time. I feel like I'm an over communicator, I feel like I overwhelm people with too many things, that I'm thinking of it. Once I was telling you just before we started how I'm you know. I was like I'm a part of the parent teacher organization and we're putting together this fundraiser and I used to run a lot of events and do a lot of community engagement as like a professional, like that was my job in urban planning community connection, all that pieces, all those pieces. So I had a lot of questions for our volunteer parent group of like how this, how a will connect to be because we have the idea but not the mechanisms. And I started to list them out and I was like oh my god, I am overwhelming this group of parents who work in different fields. Like don't do this all the time. And I just agreed, I just agreed to like make the flyers and post things on the internet. I was like I will do that much and I'm trying to stay out of the. I need to coordinate this role.
Speaker 1:So because of that, I had to ask a lot of questions and then I was feeling guilty. I was like I have just made a mess and overwhelm them and given them too much information and so, like, kind of walking away from that, I was like you had earnest questions, they do need to be answered and you only asked four questions, you didn't send them a book and it's okay. And I just kind of sat there and breathing and reminded myself that no one else is focusing as much on how I speak or what I say. Then I am yeah, I'm a huge over analyzer of the way that I am showing up in the world, just because that's kind of like how I've been conditioned and how I've also operated in the world and I'm just actively reminding myself. It's okay to ask questions, it's okay to be the person who's pointing things out, it's okay. And actually one of the parents texted me and was like, oh, I actually really appreciated this. We weren't looking at this or that. And I was like, oh, okay, it's not a waste. Yeah, you know, it's just been. It's been helping so much.
Speaker 1:And I've had this other thing that I've been doing that I want to tell you about now, because I think I've started it since we last spoke. I love it and I would love to hear your thoughts on what this is right, because I like to wing it. I just try stuff right, and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And then I talked to people who have a lot more like in-depth research background. I'm like what's your take on this?
Speaker 1:But so, as I've said too many times at this point, last year was challenging and a lot of my own self-care went to the wayside as I addressed the sort of like critical needs and learning that were so important. Right, like a person who's managing type one diabetes makes 180 additional decisions every day, and because my daughter isn't managing it and my husband and I are, we're the ones making all those extra decisions, and it took away a huge chunk of my executive function. So I just let so much go. Last year, this year, this week is the anniversary of her diagnosis. It's like a whole thing. I'm not feeling that emotional about it I did a little while ago, but now I'm kind of like, oh my God, I'm so glad we got through that year because I know we know so much more and we have so much more. But now I'm kind of looking at myself again going and I want to feel better again in my whole body. And then I take care of myself again and typically, historically, I'll have decided.
Speaker 1:Taking care of myself meant some external things. Like you look this way, you fit this outfit, these pants are this size right, like all that and I know for a podcast that you can't see me is. I probably look more or less the same as I've looked for a couple of years, but tired or more tired, and but I have all these factors and I'm like, oh, oh, that's my mom's voice in my head giving me that information, and so I've been very good at naming where that's coming from. That's that critical voice, right, but I'll still set goals based on that critical voice, like, okay, I need to do this and I'm going to do it a really healthy way. But it's still this goal of like I don't know, getting back to this weight I was two years ago or getting back to some kind of the goal like that. That's very like more materially externally oriented and not anything about how I think, feel or am.
Speaker 1:And so the thing that I've been experimenting with that's actually been quite interesting is going what if I just collected data on what it looks like to make a choice in the direction of something that supports me? And that is the only thing. I'm not looking at anything else, because I can feel myself starting to slip into critical voice and I'm kind of like an all or nothing person. So I'll overdo it and usually hurt myself, like hurt myself in that I've gone too hard too fast, I'll pull a muscle exercise too much, I'll do something right. It's like always too much, and so I'm pulling it back and I'm going. What would it look like if I just made a choice and collected data on how I feel after I've made those choices? And the data collection is really just internal moments of noticing how I'm feeling.
Speaker 1:I'm not sitting down making myself journal everything, though I have been journaling a little bit more because that supports me sometimes and I want to do that. Like, oh, I'm ruminating on this thought. I wonder if I start to unpack and really write about what this is, if I can let it go a little bit better. And so for two weeks now, I've been playing this game and I have to tell you, starting about two days ago, I was I like started to notice, was like, oh my gosh, I'm actually just feeling better at this time of day. Then I've been feeling for a while and it's just a sense of feeling more lightness. Oh, right, yeah, and that's it. I'm not getting on scales. I'm definitely still wearing lots of yoga pants, because that's all I want to be wearing at this point, right, and I have all my meetings on Zoom, so no one cares, and yeah, it's just been interesting, and so I'm like that might be self compassion, but that also might be a different way of looking at right.
Speaker 1:We're in the new year, goals, resolutions. It's like I don't want to set some goal because I'll either reach it or I won't, and I'll punish myself or I won't punish myself. Yeah, I'll over reward myself, but it was for a weird. It was motivated in a weird way, like why did I decide that goal? You know, what was that real aim? And so it's like just collecting data and making the choice of doing the thing that supports me, because that's often not what I would do. I would like go binge watch something, right? That doesn't usually support me. Oh yeah, and I've watched way less TV at night and I didn't even think about that, but that's also happened because I'm choosing to read a book instead.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm curious, the goal or the decision that you made, are you willing to share, like, what that is? Is it about like tending to your body in some way or something, the thing that you're checking in about?
Speaker 1:My sense of vitality. It waned a lot last year because I felt in such survival mode and I felt like I was kind of at the dregs of my own existence, yeah, you know like just not functioning as who I know myself to be and just not feeling very content with that version of myself. Not that she wasn't allowed like. She went through a lot and that's fine.
Speaker 2:You needed to be there to do what you did. Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I over depleted myself is really what it was. So I'm just trying to like actually allow my battery to fill up again, because it impacts the quality of life in my family, with my relationships, right yeah.
Speaker 2:So checking in around your sense of vitality, and when you do that, does something in your environment or in your body kind of remind you or trigger you with the check in, or is it just kind of organic and are you doing it like 10 times a day or like just a couple of times a day, like what happens for you? I'm just curious to break it down because I think it's helpful for people to hear, like, practically speaking, I think this is a beautiful practice and I absolutely think it's self-compassion practice and I think it overlaps with polyvagal work very nicely too. Like what is my internal state right now? Am I ventral, vagal, which is that socially engaged, thriving kind of? I don't like to use emotions like happy, that's not quite what it is, but am I socially engaged? Am I thriving? Am I in my vitality space? Or am I more sympathetically engaged, which is fight and flight and feeling a little bit more aggressive or irritable?
Speaker 2:But and we're not going to get into this right now they're also blended states, so I don't want it to be cut and dry. All of these are active to some extent all the time. And then there's dorsal vagal, which is shut down, collapse, just curling in on oneself, contraction, playing dead. If we're really talking about the animal piece, I can see where what you're doing is very aligned with that kind of checking in with one's nervous system, and I love that you explained it the way you did, like we didn't even use nervous system terms and that's what you were doing, like this wisdom is in us, without all the vocabulary and that's what.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to make and I love that. So back to the question. Just like practically what, what happens in a day when you're checking in with your vitality?
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate the polyvagal coming in just a little bit, because I was probably dorsal vagal for most of November and a good chunk of December Like just and that also timed with super dark, getting cold, like all the things we hibernate. I went into full but it just felt too much Right. And so when I'm checking in with myself, it's because I noticed that I start to go out of being more regulated, I start to go into and I'll use the. I'll start to feel more sharp, I'll start to feel more twingey or static as opposed to stasis, and when I say static I mean kind of like the sharp pokes of like when you hear like white noise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like like TV.
Speaker 1:Yeah, white noise Don't be very soothing if you want it on while you're working, but it'll be in the ways where it'll have weird blips and pops and spikes.
Speaker 2:And I'll start to irritate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't like maybe that's where I'll be. I'll be more irritated. And when I, when I, when I start to feel that and I'm, it's not because I'm having like a challenging interaction or doing a moment of parenting where, like, we have to sit and talk and work through something which is constant, and it's when it's me, by myself, because of something I think I did, and I'm catching myself because I know what that feels like so quickly and I think I think my mindfulness practice over the number of years has helped me start to recognize it pretty fast. So it might be just like this the awareness rises suddenly oh, I'm doing that thing. Oh, I'm yelling at myself, oh, I'm feeling really guilty.
Speaker 1:Guilt is a pretty big one for me. I'm feeling guilty. Why am I feeling guilty? I'm feeling guilty because I over at all and I'm like, oh, okay, my mind can tell the story of where the guilt came from. I can see it's not useful. So it's time to make a choice to help myself. And sometimes the choice is literally telling that part of my mind. I heard you, I know you're trying to keep me safe Tone it down and then, like I sit and breathe and sometimes it's Well, like I have literally been doing the thing with the cold showers and I know that that's supportive of the new system.
Speaker 1:So, like I will take a hot shower because, like, not necessarily always in that moment, but I've just been doing it because the water is so flipping cold right now it works really well because it's like 26 degrees outside. So I'll have like a nice hot shower and then I will just turn it to the coldest it can go before it shuts off and I will just stand there as if I have dunked myself in a polar plunge for at least a minute. Like I just make it go and it is the most. This is insane invigorating thing, but it feels so good and I'm not thinking about the stuff anymore because it was so shocked out of my system. But I also know that cold plunge has a vagal, a ventral, vagal response. So I also know that I'm doing that science for the torture. My Wim Hof is like who he is, but that's the guy that does the breathing stuff. Yes, anyway, yeah, but yeah, that's what I just am noticing To answer your question.
Speaker 1:I am noticing that the punitive, punishing thoughts are there and I'm going oh, you're doing it again, right, and when you had mentioned that earlier, I wanted to say like there was a time when I thought I could get rid of that voice.
Speaker 1:I like thought that she was a broken element or part of me that I needed to eradicate so I could quote, unquote, be perfect. It's like, I think, when people start to meditate and they think that meditation will solve all their problems. And for me, I've kind of realized meditation and mindfulness has helped me be aware when these parts of me are more active and they helped me turn on sort of like my more recent evolutionary brain that has empathy and compassion, to go okay, you're the primal fear part of me. You're the part that evolved first, however many millions of years ago that was. And there's no tiger and I'm not going to lose my job, my family is not going to get taken away from me and I'm not going to be burned at the stake. So all those parts of me are not necessary to be firing right now and I need to go breathe and calm that part of me down. I'm using my higher intelligence and that I know that that takes practice.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:And I want to say that on the front end.
Speaker 1:The reason I'm saying it, though, is because, even with practice, that part won't go away, so we shouldn't set ourselves up for, like, the disappointment of going. I've failed at meditation, I failed at mindfulness, because I haven't been able to turn that voice off completely. That's a real protect. If we got rid of it completely, we really wouldn't avoid dark corners on streets, walking alone at 2 am, right, like we need a little bit of that, and so it's okay that it's there. It's just kind of like beginning to coax it into safety where before it has seen fear, and that's a lot of sort of what I'm doing on the fly in the decisions, where I'm like oh, I'm ruminating.
Speaker 1:Oh, now I'm going to go start snack on this entire bag of chips. Okay, I've got a choice that supports me and be, I'm ruminating. So what do I need to do right now to help myself unruminate, right? Oh, okay, I might need to just go for a walk. I might need to drink a huge thing of water. I might be really thirsty, actually, and like the stuff that I end up thinking about when my toddlers are having. I don't have toddlers anymore, but no, but we have internal toddlers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's the same kind of level of care. It's like what would you do for your toddler that was having a bit of a meltdown. You take care of them. Yeah, you'd hold them if they need holding. You'd give them space. If they need space, you'd check if they were hungry or thirsty. And, honestly, do they need to use the restroom? Right, like any of those options, right?
Speaker 2:And I love what you're saying, because what you're implying in kind of the stepwise process here is you're noticing with a huge dose of self-compassion and, shall we say, neutrality as well as curiosity, and then you're listening for what's the need here and the toddler need might be I want that chocolate candy bar, and the parent let's just call it the parent and you, or the core self, is saying good for this moment, but the sugar is probably going to do us in, or the caffeine or whatever else. So how can we meet this need in a higher and better way is essentially the question I hear you asking, and that is what helps that little toddler need self to really calm and more than just calm, feel seen and heard, because that's what those parts need. Often, those parts and I am I'm drawing from a book called no Bad Parts Internal family systems is one lineage that talks about this, and I am a novice, I have not taken any training, just disclaimer. I love the work though, I think it's really important and I do it for myself.
Speaker 2:Voice dialogue is another lineage that uses this terminology, that is, these little toddler parts are literally formed in earlier parts of our lives and they remain activated. And we I think we all do this until we understand how this dynamic works through mindfulness and other practices, like you've done, like we try to suppress, we try to repress, we try to like, grow beyond until we really realize it's more of a surrender thing of like. Okay, you're a part of me and I think, if you're more on the spirituality track, these might be some of the shadow selves, right, like they all belong. And until we recognize they all belong, they're going to create havoc internally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I kind of feel like I'm having an aha moment with your description of this, like we, all the parts of us that exist, belong and we can belong to ourselves and accept the dark sides and the light sides. I can just see this so differently now. Thank you so much for explaining it that way. Oh, you're welcome. I think that was really helpful and I really love it because, right like it just makes me think of how our in the micro is reflected in the macro and it makes me think of the challenges and strife and violence that we experience in our society is so much around intolerance and in acceptance, because we're not accepting all the parts of ourselves. Right, we were one If all of humanity could be considered one human body. We're fighting ourselves all the time and it's creating a lot of inflammation.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's creating a lot of pain and suffering and it's because we haven't. I mean we're going to like let's enlighten 7.5 billion people whoever many people are on earth into full acceptance of ourselves and therefore each other. Right Like, I just went micro to macro really fast, that's what it feels like in the beginning. But if we can do it for ourselves, like, what a way to be able to be in the world. If we can accept ourselves as we are, it gives us more space and compassion to accept others as they are, in their places, in their mess, in their journey, and, honestly, I have more space to be able to like go.
Speaker 1:I wonder how I can be supportive as opposed to punitive. I wonder how I can like talk to a legislator about like how do we handle this in a way that honors the humanity of all of the people that are coming here because of the policies we set in the 1970s and they're all showing up now, or whatever the ways we interfered in other governments around the world and now it's coming to show up in this way. Right, like I went super political, super fast. Sorry, I'm going to bring it back. Bring it back to us. How can we accept ourselves and what does that do for us as we work or walk around in the world, and how can we affect change that way?
Speaker 2:And that I mean that is the work of a life, I think, because there's so many parts and one might be listening and think, oh my gosh, there's so many parts Like, hey, I don't know any of these parts because I maybe haven't had a month from this practice, or this is like the first time I'm hearing any of this stuff and I barely understand what you're saying. Or someone else might be listening and really get it like, oh yeah, my therapist uses internal family systems. I love it, yeah, but it feels endless, you know, and in some ways it is spiritually speaking. Physically speaking, because the nervous system is a bridge, I think, between physical and spiritual. It is the work of a lifetime to embrace all of ourselves.
Speaker 1:You just said that. In such a way I've been like how do I say this? Where I feel like the nervous system is the bridge between the physical and spiritual, like I've been thinking that I didn't have any words for it, but that's totally, that's so great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really believe that's true and I've been having conversations with other smart people about that, you know. I think it's been an interesting thing because I've also dabbled a lot. Well, I've more than dabbled. I've spent a lot of money and time in not just my physical professional career of physical therapy, but I've always been attuned to something else is going on below the surface here and did a lot of training in energy medicine and became a medical intuitive and no, I'm not going to do anything to help anyone listening to this with that, it's not my path at this point. But suffice to say, from all of that I learned.
Speaker 2:And then going into the nervous system work and being in the somatic experiencing program and some other things I've read and learned Like these are not separate things, these are all. There's a common language here and it's the nervous system that is the bridge between the physical and spiritual and it's a language that I think more people are willing to approach. You have to tell me, ellen, because of some of your work, I know can be a little bit more in the intuitive energetic realm and I think you, you, you have the unique way of delivering it in a way that makes sense broadly to the public, I think, and I don't know how that lands for you, and that's fine.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing like that I think it would explain it better than you and I think what you do is incredible on that level. And there's still a lot of folks are like, yeah, but it's energy. And you know, for you and I it's like, yeah, we are energy. You should probably pay attention to that. No shooting, but anyway, the nervous system is sometimes a little bit of an easier grasp for folks at this point.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate that and I have been really interested in learning more of the sort of the science around the nervous system because I, while I do very much enjoy speaking with people on a more intuitive level around what I see, feel, sense and understand, when I'm like in meditation, working with them, seeing things, it works for those who it works with, but for others who are like that makes no sense to me. I feel like you might be making things up or no one's ever said that, but you know, I wonder, sure, and I'm like, yeah and it, but always correlate so much to what I'm learning about. That's more rooted in like an evidence based practice or evidence based work and research.
Speaker 1:And so I I look for that because I like to back up what I'm seeing with something that I understand that's been studied from a more maybe left brain perspective and I find that can really help for people who need that. And then sometimes I do work with somebody or I'm coaching somebody, and it's more through the executive coaching that they've found me. So they're not here for intuitive support and I look at that kind of development. They're here literally for, like, leadership and authenticity, and I can still see that there's support that is needed in certain areas. But I can work with them with a language and a rooting that is more tenable and digestible. Yeah, I don't go super spiritual on everyone. It doesn't work Right.
Speaker 1:I can't and I don't want to.
Speaker 1:I don't want to ever infringe my viewpoint of how I see the world on somebody like they've come to meet me, they've met me, they've had a console. They're like, yeah, you're the person I want to work with and I'm like, great. And then, as we get to know each other, I feel it out. I'm like are we open to talking about it this way, or is this more helpful? Because the goal for me is always to support the person in a coaching context, right to support them for the growth they're seeking and give them tools they need. And sometimes they're very professional. Sometimes it's very like leaning on my experience as just a professional and I get to use that and that's helpful and I can put little nuggets in of insight that they can receive in a way that works for them. Right, I'm not trying to teach anyone to like only use their intuition and be spiritual, like that doesn't. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:But what you said about it there was another part of what you said that just kind of tickled me because we are at dinner last night. So talking about like the nervous system is this bridge and energy into the physical, and my daughter loves, loves learning about the human body both kids, actually and it helps that my husband's a transplant nurse. I always want to know a funky things that happened at work that day, and. But she has this human body book and she's read it countless times at this point. It's this great little graphic novel called human body theater, but it starts with the cells and the mitochondria on the side of plasma and then no plasma reticulum or I just know you got it.
Speaker 1:She's reading this. She was like for cracks me up. So she's seven now and she's sitting here at dinner looking at pictures of the cell going. If the cells the building block of the body and the atoms are the building block of the cells, what are the building blocks of the atoms? Mom and I sat there and I was like a lot of empty space and some electrons and some neutrons and some protons and she's like but what's that? And I was like let's energy. And she's like so we're all made of energy. And I was like way to go to kiddo, like we just need Thanks, you know, I just want. I was like there's the seven year old version. And then she sat there just looking at me and she was like everything is made of something and so something has to be this and I was like well, I, maybe under, energy is what dark matter is and we don't know how to explain that.
Speaker 2:I want to go to dinner with your family.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a lot of, it's a lot of combat over. Are we having conversation, listening to an audio book or each reading our own books? My husband's always on board for we need to talk at dinner and I'm on board with that half the time and have time and like no. I'd like to also read and be quiet right now, because it's been a day.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing that and I love I mean that's not just the seven year old explanation. I think that's like a really fundamental for folks who, you know, aren't into science or it's not their forte or whatever. I think that's a very understandable way of putting it for all of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how could we not be sensing energy? Around us at all times if that's the fundamental little source of how we are in the world, yeah, and then my brains were broken. She was like I mean I'll stop. And she was like and time and space like hey, we got to stop. Like I don't know enough physics to have this conversation.
Speaker 2:I know that time I'm not gonna have to talk beyond five dimensions.
Speaker 1:So we can be in space. That's all I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that is key for a lot of us at this point. Like I'm a little biased, but I think dysregulate and I have to caveat when I say this, which I'll do when I'm done nervous system dysregulation is probably the greatest precursor to disease and a lot of other things going on in our culture the collective inflammation, all of these things. And that doesn't mean that dysregulation is bad. It just doesn't serve us when we stay in it and don't find and learn the tools to bring ourselves back or and I don't wanna just say ourselves to also co-regulate with those around us, to find other people who are on this vibe, to return to a ventral, vagal state, which is not something we can necessarily will ourselves to do, and that's a whole other discussion. But this idea of dysregulation, I think, is like central to who we are as human and central to a lot of the challenge that we experience individually, in our families, with our friends and on our planet right now.
Speaker 1:I agree so much. I've just been nodding while you speak. Oh, like I wanted you to repeat it the part around it's okay to be dysregulated. We can't get rid of that because it goes back to that. We're never gonna get rid of the parts of us that might be sending warnings in our mind. Through conversation, internal dialogue. We can accept it, it's there. If we can accept that there will be times when we are dysregulated. There's no perfect flat line homeostasis. That's death. The body's not reacting to anything, we're not here, we're catatonic and we need to have.
Speaker 1:It's like the stimulus and response piece of our interactions in the world are so critical and we will be dysregulated. And I think that's what's really important is that it will happen every day to some extent. Ups and downs, like I was dysregulated a tiny bit because of this parent teacher organization thing and I was feeling like a little overwhelmed by how much information I had to share. Did I have to share it All? That whole thing sent me a little bit sideways for about 10 minutes. It wasn't terrible, it was a mini one today and coming back into this sense of regulation is great. But the other part is going to happen and it's the skill that you're talking about, or the practice or the learning of not getting stuck in the dysregulation. And if we're thinking of the dysregulation and a dysregulated nervous system being a contributor to a lot of unwellness, the perfect, whatever that material is inside of a Petri dish agar right Agar?
Speaker 2:I think yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the perfect material for the fomenting of like disease dis-ease turning into disease right.
Speaker 2:Ironic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so interesting and so giving ourselves the tools to just not get stuck there. I think of it this way, actually, because again we're gonna use a family example. I love it. Blood sugar right. There's a window of healthy blood sugar. It's like between 80 and 120 if a person has a healthy working pancreas and or doesn't have a ton of insulin resistance right. So that's healthy for our systems. A type one diabetic will not ever always be in that tight range, right. Even with all the insulin and all of the perfect, tightly controlled blood sugar management, they'll still spikes once in a while to like 180, 200, maybe on a bad day they'll hit 300 and come back down again, right. And this is the amount of, like, milligrams of sugar per milliliter.
Speaker 2:Per the lab value stuff yeah lab values, right.
Speaker 1:So that's what the numbers are, but we wanna really be between 80 and 120, like 120 after eating, and then back down to like 90, going as low as 80, right, and hanging out in there. That's really good for the human body, but you get dis and we dysregulate and the health is still there, everything is fine. The key is not getting stuck at this high number and bringing it back down. Right, and I'm over simplifying management of type one diabetes.
Speaker 1:Of course, yeah, and we're over simplifying nervous system regulation too, but that's fine and I'm not panicking, though I'm not panicking when she hits a high number for a little bit and then comes back down. I'm like oh, we got this. We know exactly how much insulin to give, we know exactly what kind of snack we can follow this up with later and everything's gonna be fine, right? We know that we don't know that in the beginning, but we know that now. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think it's okay to go out, but then come back in and that's like the really important part. It's like are we in 80% of the time, awesome, we're doing great, you know, and are we getting better at it in longer? Sure, and our capacity and our knowledge great yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that takes us back full circle to the beginning of your mindfulness practice, the self-compassion practice, learning to identify what's happening in me right now. Am I in the present moment enough to know what I'm sensing inside, what I'm feeling about my environment and what I'm feeling with the people around me? Or what I'm sensing, sensing and feeling are I use them interchangeably, but I'm not sure always that that's the best thing? I think that the point you make is so important because I noticed this as I was an early student in the Sematic experiencing curriculum. Somehow dysregulation for temporarily for some of us gets a little bit vilified, like oh no, I need to be regulated all the time. The reality is that being in a regulated state actually is more encompassing of the dysregulation Because of what you said. It's not about not going there because otherwise we'd be flatlined and we'd feel nothing, and that's not life, that's not vitality. It's about not getting stuck, because when we get stuck then we get cortisol pumped out, then the hormonal cascade happens that creates back to square one, inflammation, and persistent inflammation then drives, they beget each other and you have a dysregulation process that just keeps going and going. So I really appreciate your example of the blood sugar and also like, yeah, and maybe we can get into this subsequently, but the idea of like sympathetic arousal isn't always a bad thing. You might be in play on a soccer team and you're in a sympathetic space of playfulness. We still need to be able to know that it's okay to be in like competitive, playful fight mode, so to speak, to engage in a sport or Stanley Rosenberg talks about this a lot and accessing the healing power of Vegas nerve, these blended states Door soul. You can also be I'm probably not going to say this properly, but you can. You can be in a blended state of door soul and ventral as well, and One might say that there's an element of love making with that. Like you're on, you're in a surrendered state, but you're also, um, socially connected.
Speaker 2:So there are, there are ways that this express, like we don't want to lose any of the states.
Speaker 2:We just don't want to be in survival mode all the time, and that's what got me in trouble with this chronic illness piece and I think for you last year, like we have to be there at certain moments because it is life or death for us, for our kids, whatever, but but our body is not designed to live in that space and that's where we get in trouble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if you have any thoughts about that, but the whole survival versus thriving thing is really the center, kind of, of my healing process now, like all of the ways that and all of the thoughts and all of the beliefs and all of that. Like you were talking about protective Mechanisms and protective parts inside of me running the show, and how much are they running the show? Yeah, and how often are they running the show such that there's never space for survivor, for thriving mode? I'm somebody's always running a survival response in my body, or a Chronic stress response, to call it another terminology, from the work that I'm in with primal trust, such that thriving never has a chance to take hold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what you're kind of making me think of here is that I'm thinking now, if somebody who might be listening to this conversation and going kind of like I want to work on these things, how do I start Right?
Speaker 1:And maybe they don't have a mindfulness practice or a meditation practice and Like all the things we're talking about like sound really great but they're on like a super tall bookshelf and they don't have a step ladder To get to the top of the bookshelf to see what the material is and how to get going with it.
Speaker 1:And so I'm thinking now about like how the way in there's no one way in, there's no one right way to start, there's no perfect beginning, and the energy this is what I really want to say the energy of how you decide to start sets the tone for the process for you.
Speaker 1:So if you're going in a little panicked, thinking you need to know everything, thinking that you have to have it just right, that in itself is encompassing that stress response in how you're trying to deal with stress, which Can be really frustrating if that's how one approaches things typically, and it's exactly why I Decided to say what would be the choice I can make right now that supports myself, as opposed to setting a certain goal, because I am that person. I am the person who will go okay, we're working on this and this is the plan to how we're getting. We're getting there and I'm gonna do that, and I'm gonna rigidly adhere to it perfectly and Beat myself up as soon as I fail, like I don't have to say that that's not my intention, but that's the energy I usually bring into something and it's a little bit how I end up failing out of it, which is also a stress response.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's what I'm saying so the so.
Speaker 1:If someone is thinking I'm like, so here's what I want to say, like, don't do the thing I did, or do do the thing where you go. I'm curious About this one element. So maybe you're curious from this conversation about how mindfulness can Participate in your life once a day, three times a week. Right, like, you're curious about it and you're curious about the effect it might have. And do it as a data collection point, not as a a win or a fail of some kind of goal, but Merely as a scientist collecting data about what happens when I try this. And Then you don't even have to have a lab notebook or anything and take notes on it. If you don't want to, you can just go. Huh, I've been trying that out and I'm noticing I'm confused, oh, but wait, I'm noticing that I'm confused and I'm just curious about my confusion. Now, mm-hmm, that's like a double win, right there, it's not I shouldn't use the word win, but it's like that's practicing mindfulness, right there. Right, like, even in the curiosity and the noticing, just the noticing is like moments of mindfulness. Yeah, and so you can build from that scaffolding and what you said earlier, earlier, earlier, if, if we can approach the changes we're interested in exploring, right. I'm saying it that way, not the changes we want to make, right, because that's kind of rigid, but the changes were interested in Exploring. We give ourselves a lot of freedom to be curious, and I loved that you said at some point earlier in our conversation you can start to get curious about the things that are coming up for you, whether you're regulated or not regulated. And and I think that that's so true, because sometimes I'll sit down to start writing because I'm like, oh man, I'm really stuck in this thought my friend Tia calls them thought mares, right, like they're nightmares. But you're awake, I like kind of spiraling you sometimes, yeah, and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm a second of thought, mayor, I'm gonna go sit down and write because this is coming from something screaming in me that's afraid of something, and I have no idea what it is. I'm just agitated and irritated at this person right now, right, like that's not helping anybody. So what is it? Yeah, and as I write, sometimes I'm just like, oh, oh, is this coming from? That has nothing to do with them. And then I'm so curious, right, and I'm at a point too, where sometimes the discovery is more Curiosity inducing.
Speaker 1:Rather sometimes that can also that exploration can create rank, anger and hurt and resentment because you realize it came from somewhere. That's tender. Yeah, and then I would encourage you, if you find that as you're in your exploration, to be like, oh, oh, okay, I just that's. That's a spot I need to love in myself and I read something about, because resentment is something I have harbored deeply for my parents and I don't want to harbor it, but it's there, and I recently read that resentment is the wish for someone else to be punished for the harm that they've done, that you have no power to like release. And what resentment really is is it keeps us stuck in pain, yeah, right, and so it's that whole thing people talk about with forgiveness. Forgiveness isn't for the other person, it's for yourself. Forgiveness is for yourself to let go the harm that occurred, and so this is longer work. You might want to work with a therapist on some of these kinds of things, right, if this is what's coming up for you through the beginnings of any kind of practice, right, and I think that that's a great option if that's possible, because it all it is, if we can stay in. The curiosity thread is this deeper knowing of self and knowing where the the responses and reactions are coming from, and Creating more space to be curious about the dysregulation when it happens.
Speaker 1:Go, oh, I'm really dysregulated right now. What just happened, and I wish I had it in this funny voice when it happened, but I don't like. I had a huge one with my husband last week, right, I got super dysregulated. I had to leave the house. I was like, oh my god, this is just terrible. And then the next day we were able to come figure it out and I was like, holy crap, that's what that was. And we just had this major, major aha moment, right, and I was. It was.
Speaker 1:It was mediated through a couple therapists, like because we're both at a point where we knew that we were going through some of the same Lather, rinse, repeat cycles of things that would happen and we never quite figured out how to resolve them ourselves. And he and I have a lot of co Regulating good practices that we knew we needed a third person to help us. Sure, and she's been amazing. And it was like, oh, okay, so I need to love that part of myself and it's not the thing that he did, it's this thing that it triggers in me. That's old and he now has this awareness that that behavior triggers this old thing and he can see where his thing came from and we're like, oh, we're just doing this thing, that's not about either of us, but are affecting each other. How interesting.
Speaker 1:And now we're like at this point, going like, wow, we're, the humans are interesting, this is so interesting, you know, but this is a lot of work. This is a lot of like 14 years of marriage ongoing, you know. So I Rambled a lot. No, I love it. I wanted to talk about where we start if we don't know where to start. Start with small things, yeah, and have it be data collection and curiosity about what happens. If I try this and, yeah, it affects me and there's no one one right way. And, bethanne, you've mentioned a lot of books that people could pick up and Read. Read something that sounds interesting to learn more, and I, but don't go making a big old goal out of it. Go with, like you know, I would say.
Speaker 2:No, and I just want to offer in closing too I think for some folks the word mindfulness is tricky. I think it's a beautiful word, I have sort of a tensiony relationship with mindfulness, but throughout what you were saying, implicitly, there's this idea of pausing, so being really simple, and you remind me of a Victor Frankel quote that I think a lot of people maybe have heard. But if it's okay, I'd like to just shout it out at the end here, because it is probably one of the most instrumental quotes for me. In starting small, starting simple, I don't know what to do with my nervous system. Start with a pause. They're so powerful. So.
Speaker 2:So what Victor Frankel says is between stimulus and response, there's a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. It's about giving ourselves pause. If nothing else, even if you don't know what to do once you've paused, just hang with it for a moment and see what happens, with Curiosity and self-compassion, all the stuff we've been talking about. I, I love all the stories you shared. They illustrated so well these things.
Speaker 1:So thank you, well, thank you for bringing it together to like cogent, understandable frameworks. I appreciate that and yeah, we should end on that note.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's perfect. It's a good spot, so thank you. I know people are listening to these because they've told me, so thank you to those who are listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We appreciate you and feel free to leave us a comment or get in touch. We'd love to hear what strikes you or what questions you have.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Do you next time. Thanks so much for tuning in today and listening to the show. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen and if you love the show, leave a five-star review so others can find us. To learn more about my work and what I do, go to Ellen Wyoming, deloy comm. Thanks, see you next time you.